JADE 0.2.0 released

[getter77]

http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/

"After almost three months I'm proud to announce the release of JADE
0.2.0. This release marks a major and very important milestone for
JADE in the quest to succeed ADOM.
JADE 0.2.0 is the first JADE release that I dare to call a "real
game". It's still pretty limited when comparing it to ADOM content-
wise but the rate of advancement is amazing to me (almost 20.000 lines
of pure Java code added in 10 weeks, not counting comments and other
stuff - I'll post an interesting statistic concerning that, soon).
Additionally JADE 0.2.0 sports a number of features that already lift
it above and beyond ADOM as those things would be pretty hard to add
to ADOM. So here are the highlights of the 0.2.0 release, the detailed
list comes next:

    Quests that provide a "winning condition"
    Addition of all the races from ADOM plus three new classes
(tinkers, thieves and commoners besides fighters)
    Multi-classing (yeah - very cool once more classes are there)
    A construction and processing system that allows many
modifications to the environment (and can be trivially extended once
ideas start flowing from the community)
    Many many new interaction means with the environment
    About 100 new base item types as well as more than two dozen new
monsters
    Liquids, environmental effects, many new powers and abilities, an
animation system, etc. pp.

>From now on progress will be have on the content side and I hope to
achieve the level of detail of ADOM in about nine months (that would
make for a release of JADE 1.0.0 around my next birthday - we'll see
if I am unrealistic or will manage to pull the trick).

So here's the detailed list of changes:

* JADE 0.2.0 is the first "real game" version of JADE. It's still a
simple game compared to ADOM
  but it's a full-featured game nonetheless.
* Added liquids (together with flows and many effects on the
environment
  and the beings on the map) to maps.
* Added the 'U'se and 'e'at commands.
* Added state information to tiles (e.g. doors and walls) as well as
features
  (e.g. altars).
* Added code to handle item damage (not yet complete though).
* Added abilities to beings (flight, being desolid, aquatic,
unbreathing, invisiblity, the power to
  detect invisibility, swimming and teleport control).
* Added water based attacks as an attack type.
* Added desert and water effects for the environment.
* Added a (more) prompt directly before popping up the death message.
* Added satiation, food, hunger, starvation and similar niceties of
roguelike life.
* Added 101 new items (and for the first time in JADE cloaks,
gauntlets, tools, food and miscellaneous item
  types like gems and rocks as well as raw materials).
* Added 28 new monsters.
* Added the cat monster type.
* Added kobolds as a main monster race (main monster races being races
that keep getting reused for
  monster variants).
* Added 7 new PC races (dark elves, drakelings, gnomes, gray elves,
high elves, hurthlings, trolls) and
  turned orcs into a PC race.
* Added a special Halloween story arc.
* Added a Chaos gate story arc.
* Added 3 new PC professions (commoners, thieves and tinkers).
* Added complex undead.
* Added auto-identifying items.
* Added auto-cursing items.
* Added weapon poisoning.
* Added invisibility and paralysis.
* Added bite damage options by size.
* Added touch attacks.
* Added attribute draining.
* Added attribute changes due to training and other lingering side
effects.
* Added being transformations due to special attacks.
* Added a new more dynamic rumor system to the game engine.
* Added a means to merge conditions.
* Added the 'Imbue with power' skill, imbueable items and the actual
skill logic.
* Added a display of the calendar date and game time to the statistics
display.
* Added death by attribute deterioration.
* Added burrowing a special kind of movement.
* Added giant ant hives.
* Added giant bee hives.
* Added size descriptions to (by default) medium sized items if the PC
is not medium sized for better
  clarity.
* Added initial bonus skill levels for the main profession of a being.
* Added initial bonus skill levels for the race of a being.
* Added multi-classing. For now fulfilling the minimum attribute
requirements is sufficient to
  be able to advance in a class, later on quests will have to be
fulfilled (and other stuff) to
  get access to professions beyond your main profession.
* Added a menu for the manual.
* Added manual and help menus to the start screen.
* Added smell as a new sense.
* Added power point recovery.
* Added location aspects.
* Added wax as a material.
* Added a status message when saving the game.
* Added a construction skill.
* Added item processing.
* Added construction plans for various items, features and tiles.
* Added forges to dungeons.
* Added an ASCII animation system.
* Added repaint events when the window is resized.
* Added a differentiation in word forms for singular and plural.
* Added equipment for the various inhabitants of cities.
* Added the 's'earch and the 'ws' (walk search) commands.
* Added a generic mechanism for searching things for more details.
* Added secret doors.
* Added randomized dungeon names for all dungeons.
* Added lockpicking and locked doors.
* Added a command to be able to raise ones skills at any time ('A').
* Added 'k'icking and a display of the 'K'ick damage.
* Added the 'unlucky' state.
* Added an internal damage matrix to be able to provide more
believable damage effects for
  pairs of materials and damage types.
* Remapped 'apply skill' from 's' to 'a' in order to get closer to
ADOM.
* Reduced the size of the average dungeon level a bit more.
* PCs at the start are granted enough stregth so that they never will
be burdened.
* Implemented the "'p'rocess stuff", "build things" (Ctrl-p) and
"'P'ut tool to use" commands.
* Granted shopkeepers more wealth.
* Adjusted shopkeeper behaviour to only greet humanoid visitors.
* Started work on the manual.
* Terinyo now contains two shops.
* If a settlement contains more than one shop at least one of them
will be a food shop.
* Improved the readability of the skill dialog by replacing many "+0"
entries with "-".
* Increased the starting number of hitpoints for many races.
* Reduced base attributes a little bit to make the start of the game
more interesting.
* Monsters now have their attributes influenced by their main
profession, too.
* Immortalized Quentin Dauchy for finding the first bug in JADE (even
before it was released).
* Adjusted the copyright message in order to reflect that work on JADE
already was begun in 1998.
* Renamed a few monsters.
* Now uses a multi-line display for the current location name instead
of shrinking the font.
* Added a navigation cross when selecting directions.
* Added more error logging to exceptions.
* Added item stacking (RFE 416).
* Updated Apache Commons Lang 2.1 to 3.0.1 (using up an additional
100k).
* Removed the dependency on the XStream library (saving about 200k).*
Fixed an internal problem with the 'BeforeBeingHitAware' logic of
things (the modifiers of the attacker
  were used instead those of the defender).
* Fixed a major problem with beings crying for help. The whole logic
actually did not really work
  due to a bug in event broadcasting. Oops.
* Fixed the missing stone giant lord ASCII representation.
* Fixed a problem with race and gender being able to modify an
attribute score below 1 thus causing the
  preliminary death of a being.
* Fixed a typo in the wilderness death message.
* Fixed a typo with the plural of periapts of healing in their
unidentified state.
* Fixed the incorrect name of unidentified thick furs.
* Fixed a problem with items of stupidity actually increasing the
learning score.
* Fixed a problem with attribute modifying items actually ruining the
attribute scores totally.
* Fixed a problem with multi lines in the statistics display.
* Fixed a problem with the equippable items in the inventory display.
* Fixed a problem with auto-cursing items (they didn't curse
themselves... another oops).
* Fixed the line number display on the text dialogs (it was off by
one).
* Fixed various problems with cloned damage objects.
* Fixed the name of the brutal and dripping item prefixes.
* Fixed the missing profession(s) in the saved game information.
* Fixed the uncomfortable UI behaviour when closing doors (regression
289).
* Fixed the infamous "endless (un)equipping/wait" bug (issues 356,
425, 430, 446, 468).
* Fixed the problem of overburdened beings being allowed to move
(regression 402).
* Fixed a problem with + and - in weapon damage displays (issue 408).
* Fixed the problem of consuming unpaid items without having to pay
for them (issue 410).
* Fixed a funny shopkeeper grammar problem (issue 411).
* Fixed a problem with being able to finish quests again and again
(issue 433).
* Fixed problem with shop price inflation due to restocks (issue 434).
* Fixed trees claiming to be a forest (issue 438).
* Fixed the clothes singular/plural (issue 440).
* Fixed a problem with dipping uncursed items into blessed/cursed
potions of water (issue 452).
* Fixed a rare crash bug when entering other locations (issue 465).
* Fixed talking to yourself (it no longer takes up time, issue 466).
* Fixed a problem with wielded protective gear providing its standard
DV and PV bonusses (issues 418 and 467).
* Fixed an NPE problem with path tracking (issue 451, 470).
* Fixed a missing line in the display (issues 406, 437, 473).
* Fixed a problem with variable combat statistics (issues 450, 471).


Have fun, enjoy the game and provide feedback (I'm itching for ideas
on how many things should interact and I am looking forward to
proposals for interesting construction plans for things).

Besides now going back to the "release early, release often" strategy
I started in JADE 0.1.0 I now will focus on fixing bugs you might
discover (there has been so much new stuff that I fear there will be
some ugly things I missed) as well on a little something that goes by
the name of "JADE: The Ultimate Edition". I will keep you posted! "